<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<meta charset="UTF-8">
<title>Love Is a Many-Splendered Thing by ArtemisMoonsong</title>
<style type="text/css">

body { background-color: #ffffff; }
.CI {
text-align:center;
margin-top:0px;
margin-bottom:0px;
padding:0px;
}
.center   {text-align: center;}
.cover    {text-align: center;}
.full     {width: 100%; }
.quarter  {width: 25%; }
.smcap    {font-variant: small-caps;}
.u        {text-decoration: underline;}
.bold     {font-weight: bold;}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27623495">Love Is a Many-Splendered Thing</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/ArtemisMoonsong/pseuds/ArtemisMoonsong'>ArtemisMoonsong</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Dragon Age II</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Fix-It, Fluff, M/M, Past Relationship(s)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-11-18</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-11-18</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 16:36:12</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,882</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27623495</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/ArtemisMoonsong/pseuds/ArtemisMoonsong</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Anders brings Karl back to Darktown after rescuing him from the templars. The plan is to help get him back on his feet while simultaneously avoiding the templars. </p>
<p>Rekindling what they once had isn't exactly on the table.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Anders/Karl Thekla</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>8</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>17</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Love Is a Many-Splendered Thing</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Karl set his bag down on the nearest chair and looked around him. The room was small and dimly lit, with old, wooden tables scattered about the room, most of them draped with sheets. These served as beds, he supposed, though he couldn’t imagine having to sleep on one, especially not with the damp and the cold crawling up through every corner of Darktown. There were no patients awaiting treatment at present, for it was very late at night. At least the cold muted the smell of raw sewage and death and disease.</p>
<p>“So this is where you practice medicine?” he asked, eying the rickety chair—he wasn’t so certain it could hold his bag of meager belongings, let alone a human being.</p>
<p>“Yes,” came the sharp reply, “I work with what I have.”</p>
<p>“I didn’t mean it to be an insult.”</p>
<p>He made his way into the little offshoot room. It was cozier here, and there were bookcases everywhere, along with a small table, a pantry and kitchenette, as well as a bed. The smaller room even further along must be the washroom, but he didn’t for a second anticipate being able to enjoy a steaming hot bath the way he could have in the Circle—well, not unless he heated the water himself.</p>
<p>“Who says I’m insulted,” muttered Anders, not looking up as he draped and tucked sheets over the bed with a vigor that made Karl feel both old and timid at the same time.</p>
<p>“You’re changing the sheets?” he asked, smiling a little.</p>
<p>“Yes. You shouldn’t have to sleep on my dirty sheets. I’ll sleep on one of the beds in the ward.”</p>
<p>Something inside him wilted at that, but whether it was for himself or Anders he couldn’t say. Perhaps both.</p>
<p>“Here,” he said, coming forward and taking one end of the sheet, “Let me help you.”</p>
<p>Anders eyed him but allowed him to help, and together they finished making the bed. It looked soft and inviting, despite the stains and tears on the sheets and covering, and the uncertain way the bed itself seemed to shake as they’d worked on it. He took this to mean that he was very, very tired.</p>
<p>“There’s food in the pantry,” said Anders straightening. “Patients mostly pay me in food, if they can pay at all. I think there’s a bit of apple cobbler left if you dig deep enough. As for the washroom, I can’t promise the toilet will flush but it’ll try at least. The sink doesn’t work anymore.”</p>
<p>“It will do,” said Karl.</p>
<p>Anders looked at him, and he smiled—he couldn’t help it. For whatever reason, the younger man blushed and glanced away again, the perpetual scowl reasserting itself on his features.</p>
<p>“Thank you,” Karl added. “For rescuing me. For coming when I called.”</p>
<p>“Of course I came,” said Anders. “Why wouldn’t I?”</p>
<p>“Perhaps I’m just so used to you running away from me, it was a shock to find you running towards me for once.”</p>
<p>Anders rolled his eyes, but his lips twitched a little. Karl could chastise himself for staring, but what was the point? The scruff was new, too. He didn’t dislike it—Anders had always been handsome, and now his scruffy, reddish-brown cheeks only made him handsomer. The earring, he noticed, was gone.</p>
<p>“You don’t have to sleep in the other room,” he said.</p>
<p>It felt like the one thing he wasn’t supposed to say, if Anders’ expression and posture were anything to judge by. His jaw seemed to harden—or tremble—and he looked away.</p>
<p>“Karl,” he said, his voice sounding young again—like it had when they’d first met. “Just go to sleep.”</p>
<p>“I’m not suggesting anything,” Karl said. “I’m only saying you don’t have to sleep in the other room.” He felt his own lips twitch now. “We’ve shared a bed before. We were quite good at it, if I recall correctly.”</p>
<p>He saw it—the little flicker of a smile on the younger man’s face, echoing his own. But then it was gone again. Anders still wouldn’t look at him. But he hadn’t marched back into the other room yet, either.</p>
<p>“No,” came the soft reply. “Karl, no.”</p>
<p>“Why not?” he asked.</p>
<p>“Just… no.”</p>
<p>Karl should have let it drop right then. After all, he’d had perilously bad luck at keeping Anders near him over the years. <em>I’m going to escape again</em>, Anders would whisper while they held one another in the dark. <em>Take me with you</em>, he wanted to reply, yet had never had the courage to do so. <em>Don’t</em>—that was the alternative. <em>Stay with me</em>. But he couldn’t say that either.</p>
<p>Karl looked at him now. So much older—skin too pale from living in this wretched place, eyes still bright with ideals held close to his heart. No sign of the entity that dwelt within him, that which had helped him save Karl’s life only a few hours ago.</p>
<p>“That’s a very poor answer,” he teased.</p>
<p>Anders looked down. Karl hesitated before closing the distance between them, though he paused, not wishing to crowd him. Anders had liked to be touched, once upon a time. Now he was like some stray, wild thing. Karl felt that if he tried to touch him without permission, he’d get bitten—or worse, rejected.</p>
<p>“What if I stayed?” he continued.</p>
<p>Anders' head snapped up again, their eyes locking.</p>
<p>“Stayed?” he repeated. “Karl, you can’t stay. The templars will be looking for you. They’ll—</p>
<p>“I’m a grown man,” he said. “I <em>can</em> look after myself.” He smiled a little. “I know not to go where the templars might find me.”</p>
<p>“No,” Anders said, as if the word could somehow give him strength—strength of conviction he truthfully didn’t seem to have. The realization gave Karl hope.</p>
<p>“I’m an herbalist,” Karl continued. “I could help you. Still a decent cook, too. You wouldn’t have to rely on food from your patients.”</p>
<p>“Karl…”</p>
<p>“I still love you,” he said.</p>
<p>The words fell out of his mouth before he could stop them. He probably should have offered some sort of explanation—at the least, an apology. Instead, he did the unthinkable: he reached up, put his hands around the younger man’s face, and stroked his cheeks with his thumbs. Anders’ lips parted, his eyes even brighter than before, but nothing came out.</p>
<p>“Don’t tell me to go,” he murmured. “You know I’ll listen. And I’m too old to have my heart broken, Anders.”</p>
<p>Anders snorted.</p>
<p>“You aren’t old,” he said, rolling his eyes.</p>
<p>Karl wanted to kiss him, desperately. It had been years. They’d both kissed other people since then, but that didn’t really matter. He’d rather realized the truth as soon as he’d said it: he was still in love with him.</p>
<p>“What are you afraid of?” he asked softly.</p>
<p>Anders swallowed, his hands coming to rest on Karl’s arms, though he made no move to pull the hands from his face.</p>
<p>“You saw him,” he said. “Justice. He’s a part of me now. I’m… not myself anymore, not truly.”</p>
<p>“People change, Anders. It’s part of life.”</p>
<p>“No, you don’t understand!”</p>
<p>Anders shook his head and took a step back, frowning. Karl missed touching him already—<em>stop</em>, he told himself. <em>Stop</em>.</p>
<p>“Help me understand,” he said.</p>
<p>Anders cocked an eyebrow.</p>
<p>“Why? So you can try to change my mind?”</p>
<p>Karl laughed; he couldn’t help it. The sound seemed to surprise the younger man. He hoped it didn’t lead him to believe that he took the situation lightly.</p>
<p>“No,” he said. “Well, yes. I think it would rather lessen the sincerity of my ardor if I didn’t.”</p>
<p>Anders smiled and looked down—he was blushing again. Karl couldn’t stop thinking about kissing him. What would it feel like to hold him in his arms again? He seemed thin, haggard. <em>I’ll soon fill him up</em>, he thought, and of course he'd been thinking of cooking for him, filling that thin body of his up with proper meals. But the unintended innuendo still almost made him laugh again.</p>
<p>“Justice says you would be a distraction,” said Anders.</p>
<p>“He speaks to you?”</p>
<p>“Oh, yes. He’s full of opinions.”</p>
<p>“And he doesn’t care for me?”</p>
<p>“No, it isn’t that. It’s more like he can tell that <em>I</em> care for <em>you</em>, and—</p>
<p>Anders’ mouth clamped shut with an audible <em>clack</em>, his cheeks pinking again. Karl told himself he wouldn’t dwell on how cute he looked right now. They were having a very serious conversation, something that could potentially affect the rest of both their lives. Kissing should be the furthest thing from his mind at present.</p>
<p>“So he would be there,” he said, unable to help himself. “In your head, talking to you, listening, if we…?”</p>
<p>“You’re incorrigible!” said Anders, and then Karl did a very terrible thing, which was to close the distance between them again, rest his hand on the younger man’s cheek, and kiss him.</p>
<p>Anders’ lips were very soft against his own. He didn’t so much return the kiss as relax into it, almost instantly. His head tilted upward—he was slightly shorter than Karl—and he seemed to lean against him, palms resting on his chest. Karl wanted more—quite a bit more. And he knew what Anders’ body would feel like beneath his own; he wanted to feel that again, <em>badly</em>.</p>
<p>But this wasn’t about that. It wasn’t about what his body wanted right now, here, in this moment. That sort of thing would be easy to satisfy, if Anders’ reception to his kiss was anything to judge by. But that wasn’t why he wanted to stay.</p>
<p>“Share my bed,” he murmured after their lips parted. “Share my <em>life</em>. Let me stay.”</p>
<p>Anders was silent. Karl wondered if he could hear his heart beating fast and hard in his chest. If he denied him—if he <em>rejected</em> him, he would have to accept it. He would lose him yet again. And this time, he felt, he <em>knew</em>, it would be forever.</p>
<p>“All right,” said Anders, sighing. He sounded like a man who’d been pushed to the brink—Karl wasn’t quite sure how he felt about that. But maybe, he supposed, it had very little to do with <em>him</em>. And if he stayed, as it seemed he was being given permission to do—maybe it was something he could actually help with.</p>
<p>“It isn’t so terrible,” he said, rubbing his nose gently against the other man’s, “to be loved. I promise I won’t be a burden to you.”</p>
<p>“I fear it could be the other way around,” came the tired reply.</p>
<p>That broke his heart—so he ignored it for now, choosing instead to brush his lips against his lover’s again.</p>
<p>“Let me make love to you,” he said, “in your rickety old bed and your room with no door. It’ll be just like old times.”</p>
<p>And when Anders’ only response was to <em>giggle</em>, it caused his heart to beat fast for a new reason. And when he once again held him in his arms and happily reacquainted himself with a body he’d once known so well—he knew, that for once in his life, he had done the brave thing. He had finally made the right decision.</p>
<p>He had chosen love.</p>
<p> </p>
  </div></div>
</body>
</html>